Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Wrap-up of Pipra's workshop in Vietnam

We've been meaning to write for some time about our recent workshop in Vietnam. As many "Pipra friends" know, we have a grant from the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF) to teach about IP management in Vietnam. We're helping public research institutions there learn about patenting, in-licensing, out-licensing, commercialization, and, in general, how to maximize the return on their public research dollars.

On November 27th and 28th, PIPRA hosted the first of three annual workshops in Hanoi, Vietnam entitled “Intellectual Property Rights and Commercialization of Research Results of Institutions in the Field of Agriculture and Biotechnology” (a long title, which, we are told sounds better in Vietnamese!). The workshop was co-organized with the National Office of Intellectual Property (NOIP) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

We happy to say that the workshop was an unqualified success. We had over 80 attendees from more than 21 different institutions and some excellent speakers including Ramon Oliveros, from IRRI; Atty. Antonio Beronio, from PhilRice; Dr. Shashank Mauria, from ICAR; and Dr. Saowaluck Pornkulwat from Monsanto Thailand.